Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned agency staff to either “embrace” the Trump administration’s changes or plan to retire.
In his first address since being sworn in, Kennedy outlined his vision for the department he now leads at HHS headquarters on Tuesday, days after hundreds of probationary employees were terminated. Those layoffs, part of a Department of Government Efficiency-led effort to reduce spending in part by shrinking the federal workforce, include an estimated 1,300 purged from the Center for Disease Control - 10 percent of its workforce.
Although Kennedy didn’t address those recent departures, according to Politico, he had a suggestion for employees who couldn’t get behind his sweeping changes for the department: “Those who are unwilling to embrace those kinds of ideas can retire.”
However, he noted that he trusts “the idealism of most of the people who work at HHS.”
Some of those proposed reforms include a presidential commission tasked with investigating the potential causes of chronic disease. "Nothing is going to be off limits.”
“Some of the possible factors we will investigate were formerly taboo or insufficiently scrutinized,” such as the childhood vaccine schedule, anti-depressants and ultra-processed foods, the vaccine skeptic said, according to ABC News.
These remarks seem to come in stark contrast to his testimony before the Senate last month, when he said: "I support vaccines. I support the vaccine schedule. I support good science.”
He encouraged staff to be open-minded to his ideas and promised to do the same in return: “I’m going to keep asking questions but hold my preconceived answers lightly. I’m willing to be wrong.”
The HHS will work with “radical transparency,” he vowed, according to the New York Times. “Both science and democracy flourish from the free and unimpeded flow of information.”
The 71-year-old also laid out his plans to remove any potential conflicts of interests from HHS advisory committees.
“We will remove conflicts of interest from the committees and research partners whenever possible or balance them with other stakeholders,” Kennedy said. “We will shut the revolving door.”
Kennedy’s comments come days after President Donald Trump last week established the President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission with a focus on reversing chronic disease, avoiding or eliminating conflicts of interest in federally funded health research, and working with farmers to ensure U.S. food is the “healthiest, most abundant and most affordable in the world.”
